A Hoosier Win at the Science Fair!

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Brandt Callahan and Jackson Bartlett, who go to Parkview Intermediate School in Bedford, Indiana, took the Experiment of the Week and won FIRST PRIZE in the third grade division of the Science Fair! 

In fact, Brandt and Jackson added a little OOMPH to the experiment by using several different kinds of cereal instead of just one, and using a blender instead of a baggie and their hands. The boys admit that most of the cereals they used just didn’t seem to have any iron in them, in spite of what their labels claimed.

Next time, they’re going to use Life cereal, because they want to SEE the little black dots of iron! They’ve also decided that there definitely won’t be any raisins involved - the ICK factor was just too high with raisins.

Brandt and Jackson are in the third grade, and they learned about this experiment from their teacher. Jackson had won First Prize in first grade, and

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A Look Inside Our Lab on Modern Marvels

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The crew from Modern Marvels on the History Channel visited our science lab back in July to play with some really cold science experiments. In other words, the liquid nitrogen was flowing and the onions were exploding! Mark your calendars… Modern Marvels: Deep Freeze will officially be airing on the History Channel on Tuesday, September 25th at 8pm EST.

Exploding Watermelons

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I love Halloween. One of my favorite activities is to “carve” pumpkins using a simple reation inside the fruit. First, you carve the face then carefully replace pieces. After creating a reaction by generating a gas inside and igniting it (ask your local chemistry teacher for the details) the face pieces are blown off with a small explosion. Halloween is more than 100 days away and I just couldn’t wait. So I initiated the new weather anchor at the local Denver television station by introducing her to carving watermelons. The problem was, we didn’t really carve the watermelon, it exploded. Watch the Video to see how we skipped right over the carving and went straight to exploding.

Young Magicians Take Center Stage

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Okay, it’s not science… but I’m so proud that I just had to share it. Mark and Scott are our twin 5 year old boys who have both taken a liking to magic. It probably doesn’t hurt to see their brother Jack (who is now 8 years old) performing his magic tricks on stage. I was recently invited to be a featured speaker at the SPLASH Summer Conference presented by Frog Street Press in Dallas, Texas. Mark and Scott performed this trick on stage in front of almost 1,700 teachers and they had a ball. The boys couldn’t understand why everyone was getting up to leave at the end of their trick. You’ll see why. 

Hooked on Learning - Jack Spangler’s Magic Trick

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Jack is 8 years old and likes to perform (he must get that from his Mom). Three years ago, the owners of Frog Street Press invited Jack to accompany me to their amazing summer conference for teachers called SPLASH. I helped Jack perform his first magic trick in front of a large audience (about 1,200 teachers) and that’s all it took. The Frog Street Press people were kind enough to invite us back this July, and Jack was ready to hit center stage. Jack’s routine is an original twist on a classic magic trick you might have seen performed by another magician using pom-pom balls. The audience in this video consisted of almost 1,700 early childhood educators (primarily pre-K through 2nd grade). Here’s Jack…